The purpose of US foreign policy should be to enlist others, in particular the major powers, in helping the United States meet the defining challenges and problems of this era. Those defining challenges are essentially manifestations of globalization—things like terrorism, the spread of weapons of mass destruction, protectionism, genocide, state failure, and so forth. In all of these situations, the United States needs partners. It needs their active cooperation.

So I would suggest that the purpose of US foreign policy should be to integrate others into promoting international cooperation to meet these challenges head-on, none of which the United States can successfully cope with by itself. Either we lack the resources, or in some cases the nature of the problem is such that no country, no matter how great its resources, can successfully deal with it alone. Again, this is where globalization comes in. It is in that nature of global problems that they cannot be solved by individual countries.

So again you are saying it is influence, not power, that the United States wants to wield?

That is part of it, because the United States needs to bring its power to bear. But I take your point, that it also needs to translate our power into influence so that others bring their power to bear, and that is the only way the United States will be successful. In order to do so, I would suggest that there are two prerequisites. One is that the United States needs to stay strong, both so that it has something to bring to the table and also to discourage others from challenging it. But second, it has to be persuasive, which means the United States has to support goals that others will not see as simply in US self-interest, but also in theirs. So the purpose of successful diplomacy should be to create large degrees of overlap between what is the US national interest and what others come to see as their national interest.

How do rogue states like North Korea and Iran, which are great powers neither economically nor militarily, but have nonetheless garnered substantial political leverage, come to wield power?

There are many ways to have power. It does not take tremendous military might or economic wealth to wield power. Terrorist operations, for example, are quite cheap. What Al Qaeda did on September 11, 2001 was to some extent one of the most cost-effective military operations—indeed it may well have been the most cost-effective military operation—in the history of the world. It was cost-effective not only in terms of what it cost them and in terms of the destructive consequences, but also in terms of the national response that the terrorist attacks stimulated.

Other countries or other groups do not need to match the United States tank for tank, plane for plane, or dollar for dollar in order to have substantial power, especially if a country got ahold of a weapon of mass destruction. North Korea has power through counterfeiting and through drugs. Iran has power through their support for terrorism and because of its energy resources, which has been augmented by an extremely tight energy market and gives it a good degree of international leverage. So countries may have forms of negative power—the power to cause harm, or the power to destroy. There are also countries with potential positive power, and the goal of US foreign policy ought to be to get those countries with positive power to partner with us, to contribute what they can so we can take on those that have negative power.

While Europe has recently implied an interest in selling arms to China, the United States has a close relationship with Taiwan, and Russia has and may still sell arms to Iran. Each of these arms-sales flows is somewhat contrary to the idea of an ideal world order envisioned by the other powers. Is this indicative of some underlying conflict in the way power is distributed among these states?

I think it is simply a reflection of the fact that we live in a world in which there is not always 100 percent agreement or consensus on what needs doing, and even when there is consensus on the goals, there is profound disagreement on how to get from here to there. So countries, for example, might agree that they do not want an Iran or North Korea to acquire nuclear weapons or, if they do develop them, to use or transfer them, but they could—indeed they do at times—have very different ideas about what should be done in order to influence an Iran or a North Korea.

For example, in the run-up to the Iraq War, there were very different ideas about what needed to happen, or what strategies should be pursued. You mentioned the case of the European technology transfer to China. The Europeans are clearly motivated by a desire to expand their ability to sell to the world’s fastest growing market, and it is still unclear if the United States and Europe can therefore agree on what guidelines ought to govern this technology transfer.

It is also still unclear if there will be consensus among the United States, Europe, and Russia about how to specifically put together a package to shape Iranian behavior vis-à-vis its nuclear program. But we live in a time where, as I said before, the chance of major power conflict is remote.

It does not mean that the major powers are existing in some sort of a 19th century concert where they agree on everything. They are not. Foreign policy takes place in this in-between situation, and the goal of diplomacy is to move it more in the direction where we and the others essentially come closer in our assessments of what needs doing, but we are obviously not there yet.

So you believe these disagreements, at least at this stage, reflect more superficial challenges?

It has profound consequences, but it does not mean that simply because we disagree on technology transfer to China, the United States and Europe are in an adversarial position. We are not. Sometimes the United States and others are simply going to have to agree to disagree, and when that happens, we try to limit the disagreement.